21-Year-Old Tawon Boyd Dies Three Days After Physical Struggle With Baltimore County Police
Officers encountered Tawon Boyd after his girlfriend called in to say that he was acting “crazy,” according to the Baltimore Sun. Three days after officers forcibly restrained him by repeatedly pushing him to the ground and punching him multiple times, the 21-year-old has passed away.
When police arrived, Boyd was reportedly acting “confused and paranoid, sweating heavily,” according to their accounts. He then proceeded to try and gain entry to multiple police vehicles and banged on neighbors doors. His grandmother, Linda Burch, noticed that he was acting strange and as if he were “on something.”
“He was just hollering and screaming on the ground, and they just kept pushing him down, pushing him down, on his shoulder and back and stuff, hitting him,” Burch said. “He was trying to get them off of him.”
Both Burch and Boyd’s girlfriend claim that they were trying to tell officers that they could seriously hurt, or even kill him, with the degree of force they were using.
“I kept telling them stop before they hurt him because I told them they could kill him like that,” said his girlfriend. “They told me to go across the street before they lock me up.”
While the cause of death won’t be certain until after an autopsy is performed, but an attorney for his family says his death was connected to heart and kidney failure. Internal investigations are being held within the Baltimore County police department and fire department concerning the incident.
Unfortunately, this appears to beet another example of police crossing the line between using force and excessive force and may have played a role in another life lost.
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